Dear Editor,

The recent vandalism of the Ukraine exhibit at the ArtBeam gallery in Chelsea reported by Mr. Colin Moynihan was deeply disturbing from a freedom of speech perspective and raises key questions about the re-emergence of neo-Nazism in Ukraine.

(1) The Azov photo in Mr. Moynihan's article has the black Wolfsangel symbol. According to an August 11, 2014 Telegraph report, "The Azov men use the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel (Wolf’s Hook) symbol on their banner and members of the battalion are openly white supremacists, or anti-Semites.

“Personally, I’m a Nazi,” said “Phantom”, a 23-year-old former lawyer at the ceremony wearing camouflage and holding a Kalashnikov. “I don’t hate any other nationalities but I believe each nation should have its own country.” He added: “We have one idea: to liberate our land from terrorists.”

The Guardian also reported about the Azov Battalion on September 10, 2014.

(2) There is also the Aidar Battalion according to the OSCE. Former AP journalist Robert Parry detailed neo-nazi groups like Azov and Aidar referencing NYT, Telegraph, Amnesty International, and OSCE reports.

(3) Azov and Aidar are not the only neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine. The BBC reported on March 1, 2014, that neo-Nazi groups openly participated in the Maidan demonstrations.

(4) Some surviving members of the Ukrainian SS Halychyna division and their descendants marched in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv in remembrance of the founding of the SS Halychyna on April 28, 1943. This happened during the same time of 2014 US Holocaust Memorial Museum's Days of Remembrance. The SS Halychyna is also known as the

14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician).

QUESTION: What would the reaction be if a German SS division tried to have a similar march like the SS Halychyna march?

Not only did the current Kiev government allow this allow the SS Halychyna march to take place, it also denied the 70th annual celebration of the Allied victory over Nazism on March 13, 2014, in Kherson in south-eastern Ukraine.

(5) “The Return of the Ukrainian Far Right” by Per Anders Rudling in 2013 provides excellent background Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) leader Stepan Bandera, Svoboda, and others. USA Today reported that 15,000 marched in Kiev on January 1, 2014, in observance of what would have been Bandera’s 105th birthday.

(6) One of the key leaders in the post-Yanukovych era is Dr. Oleh Tyahnybok. Oleh Tyahnybok is pictured making a Nazi salute during a Svoboda meeting. Moreover, Tyahnybok's anti-Semitic slurs are from a December 25, 2012, BBC report follows:

In 2004, Tyahnybok was kicked out of former President Viktor Yushchenko's parliamentary faction for a speech calling for Ukrainians to fight against a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia" - using two highly insulting words to describe Russians and Jews - and emphasising that Ukrainians had in the past fought this threat with arms.

Continue reading the main story

The open letter (2005)

Title - Stop the Criminal Activities of Organised Jewry
Signed by Tyahnybok and 17 others
Lists Jewish businessmen, who got rich in the 1990s, and claims they control Ukrainian media
Describes Zionism as "Jewish Nazism" and warns of "genocide" through the impoverishment of Ukrainians
Demands investigation into the activities of Jewish organisations headed by people "suspected of serious crimes"

In 2005, he signed an open letter to Ukrainian leaders, including President Yushchenko, calling for the government to halt the "criminal activities" of "organised Jewry", which, the letter said, was spreading its influence in the country through conspiratorial organisations as the Anti-Defamation League - and which ultimately wanted to commit "genocide" against the Ukrainian people.

Why did US Senator John McCain and US Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland meet and be pictured with Dr. Tyahnybok in light of his anti-Semitic past?

(7) Assistant Secretary Nuland stated her preference for "Yats", Arseny Yatsenyuk, during her infamous "F--- the EU" conversation with the American Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt. Though not a member of Right Sector or Svoboda, Yatsenyuk said "Russians are Subhuman" after becoming prime minister.

(8) In addition to Dr. Tyahnybok, several of the most powerful leaders are from neo-Nazi groups such as Right Sector and Svoboda. They are Dmytro Yarosh, Andriy Parubly, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, Ihor Tenyukh, Oleksnadr Sych, and Oleg Makhnitsky.

David C. Speedie is senior fellow director for the U.S. Global Engagement Program at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and wrote an op-ed on CNN titled"Rein in Ukraine's neo-fascists".

(9) Far-right Ukrainian MP Igor Miroshnichenko is a member of Rada's freedom of speech committee. Ironically, Miroshnichenko didn't like Russian President Putin's speech on Crimea was broadcast on Ukrainian State TV so he visited the office of Oleksandr Panteleymonov. Miroshnichenko shouted at Panteleymonov and then physically assaulted him at 4:40 in the NBC video. Sadly, this is not Miroshnichenko's first "free speech" outburst. He used an anti-Semitic slur against actress Mila Kunis in 2012.

(10) One of the Maidan leaders not affiliated with a far right group is Dr. Olga Bogomolets. Dr. Bogomolets is a famous physician who encouraged her students to participate in the EuroMaidan protests. While examining the dead in Kiev, she found a disturbing pattern that she shared with Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet. FM Paet shared his findings with Lady Ashton. "According to Paet, Bogomelets told him that the new Ukrainian authorities did not want to investigate what exactly had happened or who was responsible for the snipers' actions, decisions that she found ‘disturbing.' 'She then also showed me some photos. She said that as a medical doctor she can say that it is the same handwriting, the same type of bullets, and it's really disturbing that now the new coalition, that they don't want to investigate what exactly happened,' Paet said on the call with Ashton.” A thorough outside investigation of the Maidan shootings needs to be conducted.

Furthermore, I think Dr. Bogomolets should have been elected President of Ukraine in May 2014 as she is a humanitarian and not an oligarch. However, she unfortunately received 1.91 percent of the vote. She lost to Petro Poroshenko, AKA "The Chocolate King".

CONCLUSION: The exhibit in Chelsea makes us ask tough questions of American support for the neo-Nazis who have ascended to power in Ukraine. The corrupt Victor Yanukovych is not missed. However, the way he was overthrown from power is important. It's even more important to expose the neo-Nazis who have taken control of key elements of Ukraine's government.

Ukraine is in a nightmare scenario. To collateralize billions of dollars in IMF loans, 33 tons of Ukraine's gold supply was reportedly sent abroad in March 2014. Monsanto has established a large presence in Ukraine. Chevron is planning to proceed with risky fracking. More than 3,000 have died according to Reuters. The UN reports numerous human rights violations in eastern Ukraine as well as 275,489 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) on page 5, #13.

Though neo-cons such as Assistant Secretary Nuland and Senator McCain have dominated America's policy on Ukraine, there are voices of reason such as New York University and Princeton University Professor Stephen F.Cohen, former American Ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock, and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). We need to pay attention to them and learn from the mistakes of the West's policy in Ukraine detailed in University of Chicago Professor John J. Mearsheimer titled "How the West Caused the Ukraine Crisis" in Foreign Affairs. Once we learn from those mistakes, we'll be able to help the long-suffering people of Ukraine move forward. In the interim, I hope the NYPD can bring those who vandalized the ArtBeam gallery to justice.

Best regards,

Tomislav S. Djurdjevich

Brooklyn, NY

The writer is a graduate of the US Army Airborne School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and with a minor in Russian Studies from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo. He is presently a civilian IT consultant and this Op-Ed represents his personal views and not of his clients. His personal research interests include exposing far right movements particularly the Croatian Ustasha for creating and operating the Jasenovac Concentration Camp where hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews, Roma, and others died in WWII.

References:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/05/exhibit-on-ukraine-displays-signs-of-vandalism/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=3